There is no such thing as a baby, there is a baby and someone.

What is a normal child like? Does he just eat and grow and smile sweetly? No, that is not what he is like. The normal child, if he has confidence in mother and father, pulls out all the stops. In the course of time, he tries out his power to disrupt, to destroy, to frighten, to wear down, to waste, to wangle, and to appropriate . . . At the start he absolutely needs to live in a circle of love and strength (with consequent tolerance) if he is not to be too fearful of his own thoughts and of his imaginings to make progress in his emotional development.

However, it can't be helped; mothers, if they do their job properly, are the representatives of the hard, demanding world and it is they who gradually introduce reality which is so often the enemy of impulse. There is anger with mother and hatred is somewhere even when there is absolutely no doubt of love that is mixed with adoration.

It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.

Creativity consists in maintaining a key aspect of the experience of childhood throughout one's life: the capacity to create and recreate the world. Creativity is the omnipotence of the child's mind.

It is in playing, and perhaps only in playing, that the child is free to be creative.

The fact that grief takes so long to resolve is not a sign of inadequacy, but betokens depth of soul.